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By Nicole Telford- Linden is being strategically targeted by the PPP/C administration for marginalisation, and it is a shame to see the public racism and discriminatory practices on full display. This is the view of Mr. Deron Adams, Regional Chairman, Regional Democratic Council (RDC), Region 10. Village Voice News spoke with Adams who outlined “the discriminatory practices of the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) that continues to attack Linden.”
The Upper-Demerara Upper-Berbice Regional Chairman said it is painful to see what he calls “a shameful show of hand in the public racism and discrimination meted out to Lindeners.” He stated too that in all sectors, development and employment discrimination by the (PPP/C) Government is visible. The region is being targeted, he stated, “in the health sector, in the agriculture sector, in the area of job creation and land distribution.”
Adams pointed out that in health the government received an economy that was growing at over 45 percent in 2020, yet when they came to office, they sought to cut down on the workforce. “The nursing school, Regions one to nine training in the Professional and Nursing Assistance Programme continues but in Region Ten, Linden, it has been suspended to the new intake of nurses, young people who aspire to be in the health sector.” He noted too that to-date three years after the PPP/C government took office the Linden Hospital Complex is without a Board, which means persons are making unilateral decisions for the institution.
Adams further stated that under former APNU/AFC Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawerence, employment and training programmes were created to employ and increase the workforce. When you do a comparative analysis under the APNU/AFC, “you had Ms. Volda Lawerence creating programmes to employ young women and men, with the patient care assistance programme that was established under the Charles Rosa programme where sixty young people were employed, the chairman pointed out.
Explaining that “while they would have closed the nursing school in Linden, they quietly called back six persons of one ethnicity or type with names like Dindiyal.”
The PPP/C led Government of Guyana, President Irfaan Ali announced on July 12, 2023, during a press conference, while answering questions from the media, that one of the main issues facing the Caribbean region is the outward movement of nurses and health workers. The president noted too that he was in talks with the Cuban Ambassador to see how to fill the gap because of what he called a tremendous shortage.
However, Adams rubbishes the government’s claim stating that “government is now seeking to bring Cuban nurses into the country after denying Guyanese nurses in Linden the opportunity to train and to go through many of the nursing programmes.”
He stressed the stifling of the youth in Region Ten is a concern of the leaders in the region and they will continue to expose, educate and agitate against these injustices that are coming to the people of Linden.
Questioned on how they, as leaders in the region intend to address the nursing schools’ closure by government and the discrimination against the development of Lindeners, Adams explained that “we as leaders have been speaking with the international community, we have been writing letters and holding press conferences and we will go to the streets when the time is right.”
Apart from those measures “we have launched the Regional Economic Advancement Partnership Programme (REAP) where we will seek to connect the talent of the people in the diaspora with talented people in the region,” he pointed out.
The Government of Guyana appears useless as several citizen’S initiatives and non-governmental organisations are filling the gaps. The regional chairman further explained that “the region is also receiving the support of the U.S Embassy’s Civil Affairs Team and is in partnership with international medical groups, some of whom have completed the center for children with disabilities.
Going further in outlying the region’s efforts at countering the government’s acts of discrimination Adams pointed out the region along with sponsors are looking to complete an information and communication technology (ICT) will continue to train young people like what occurred in 2018 and 2019. This, he said, is to ensure there is a smooth transition in the area of ICT for them to be gainfully employed.
Adams said “in the area of agriculture, Linden would have seen the APNU/AFC government invest more than $3 million in the farm-to-market road from Millie’s Hideout to the Berbice River to empower our food security. He shared that in one of his visits to the Berbice River it was sad to see produces such as eggplant, eddoes, watermelon among others all “going to waste simply because this PPP/C government has failed to empower our food security by not maintaining the road to facilitate the ease of farm to market delivery.”
Quoting Finance Minister Ashni Singh saying, “other regions have a comparative advantage to region ten” Adams expressed “maybe that is the reason why the government is discriminating against us in the agriculture sector.”
Touching on cash grants distribution, the Chairman said the distribution is discriminatory. “We have seen where the distribution of cash grants when it comes to the region, is being politicised, rather than it being sent to a technical team, it is sent to a political person who has to identify people. There was a recording where one of the PPP/C candidates in the local government election said she was told to get 15 to 20 names of people who worked with her on election day to get a cash grant.”
“We have a lot of people with the vision, entrepreneurial pioneers in linden, who are marketing new products and services, yet they are being denied the access to these cash grants to these loans because in my view and based on the evidence we have in our possession even the small Business Bureau is being politicised” the chairman bemoaned.
It was also pointed out that “investors who want to come into the region from the diaspora to do business, when they complete the application at Lands and Survey it comes to the office of the Regional Chairman for a no objection which is granted yet no investor has returned to say their application is successful, it goes to Georgetown, and it sits on somebody’s desk, so it is a turn off,” he said.
Touching on Guyana’s newly ascribed wealth status, Adams, noted “Our people are not feeling the massive boom that some are talking about, we are not feeling the ‘one Guyana;’ in fact we believe that there is a special Guyana for some people, the top one percent. When you look at the records you are seeing other persons who are aligned to the PPP/C administration, programmes being expedited, but for Guyanese who just a few years ago were denied entry to certain Caribbean countries and forced to sit on benches, we are now seeing land access being expedited and made available to those very nationals while Guyanese are being pushed to the back of the line.”
Adams explained that in the yearly budgetary allocation for the development of recreational facilities the RDC was told by the PPP/C government to peg the grounds at $5 million. However, “all of the playgrounds that we have submitted, whether it was in the communities of Silver Town, Kara Kara, Spieghtland, Christianburg and Retrieve, were all removed from the RDC’s budget by the PPP/C, between 2021 and 2023.”
He however noted, that “while the grounds were removed from the (RDC) budget, the grounds at Retrieve were expedited by the PPP/C government for a supporter of the government to Host an ‘All Black’ event for the Linden Town Week, but the weather conditions shifted the event to another location and now the children of the premier schools, McKenzie High School, Regma Primary School, Marcia Craig Institute and the entire community of Retrieve are now left without a facility because the ground was not completed by the government since the completion of the town week.”
Undeterred, Adams pointed out that “we went ahead under the REAP programme to assist the communities, explaining that the Retrieve Raiders Basketball team reached out to the office of the Regional Chairman for assistance, and we reached out to one of our corporate sponsors and partners and they were able to fund the electrical cable to enable the athletes to play basketball at nights, without assistance from the government, without your tax paying dollars.” He added that with Exxon Mobil coming on board and renovating the bleachers, along with giving support in the area of culture, youth and sport is a blessing.
“Many private people are filling the gaps in Linden where government support is lacking,” a determined Adams informed.
